


Redemption and Forgiveness

by JayceCarter



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Feels, Gen, Illnesses, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:37:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: Kolyat hates his father, and Thane doesn't blame him for it. Still, he struggles to gain his son's forgiveness.





	Redemption and Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> So, for anyone who knows what happens to Thane in game, you know what to expect here. This is sad, here is your warning. However, I wanted to examine the relationship between Thane and Kolyat and look at Thane's life when he wasn't with Shepard. 
> 
> I tagged this as gen despite there being a background Thane/Shepard romance since that wasn't the point of this story.

Kolyat was no longer the young boy Thane remembered. Gone was the sweet innocence, the child who had asked to dance crazy with him, who Thane had never given proper time to.

In his place sat a man filled with anger and resentment. All things Thane himself had caused.

"You think you have the right to try and tell me what to do now? You lost that when you ran out on Mother and me." Kolyat sat in the interrogation room, the privacy Bailey had given them.

Not that privacy mattered greatly to Thane. He had no illusions. He'd been a good assassin and a terrible father. No, not even terrible, terrible implied he'd been there. He'd simply been absent.

"Why are you here?"

Thane kept his hands folded though none of the hard-fought calm he'd learned from meditation would help him. "I heard from my contacts that you had taken a contract. I had to stop you."

"Now you care?"

"I have always cared, Kolyat. I am sorry I never showed it."

Kolyat huffed, face turned away and angry. "You're sorry? You think I care about your sorries? Just go, back to whatever life is so important you never stuck around."

"You're angry with me for leaving when your mother died."

Kolyat's hand slammed down on the metal table. "You were never there when she was alive, why should I expect you to be there when she died?" His voice echoed off the walls, and Thane wondered how soundproofed the interrogation walls were.

He spoke softly as if the quiet could remove the sting of his responsibility. "Your mother died because of me, because of the work I did. I stayed away too long, and my enemies took their anger for me out on her. I should have been there, but I wasn't. And then? When I should have been there for you, when I should have done right by you, I allowed my anger and grief to consume me. I hunted her killers, made them suffer, took everything from them before I killed them." Thane kept his mind in the present, refusing to lose himself in the memories. He didn't want to see her body as it had sunk beneath the water, or the hear the begging of men he'd granted no mercy to. "By the time I finished that task, you were older, so much older, and with so much blood on my hands, I had nothing to give to you. I thought you would be better off raised by family." Thane lifted his gaze to his son’s, his chest aching as it always did. Kolyat had his mothers coloring, the blues she'd had instead of Thane’s greens.

He wanted to find some forgiveness in those eyes, even a speck of hope he could cling to. But the young were quick to hold their anger, and he deserved nothing less.

Kolyat crossed his arms and sat back in the chair. "If it was so easy to leave then, why don't you just do it again now?"

The jab didn’t surprise Thane, and it didn’t wound. He expected nothing less.

He stood, the chair scraping along the ground. "I am leaving soon."

"Your illness? I don't care, maybe that's just fate giving you what you deserve."

Thane nodded. "I had considered that. It is possible. That is not what I mean, though. There is a mission, a chance to do something good, to offer you the protection I could not before. However, I am not blind to the dangers. I may not make it back, may not see you again."

"So just like always, then?"

"I never said goodbye to your mother. She never said goodbye to me. We assumed there was always time until there wasn't. If I do not make it back, if this mission is my end, know that I am sorry, and I am proud of you. I have taken many bad things out of this world, Kolyat, but you are the only good thing I ever added to it." Thane didn't wait to see Kolyat's response, to hear one. He didn't want to, didn't want to risk the pain of more rejection. Instead, he left his son and could only hope he'd someday understand, that he'd someday gain the forgiveness he could never earn.  

# 

A month passed before he could return to the Citadel. Bailey had put Kolyat to work for C-Sec, something that warmed Thane.

Thane, someone who had taken so many lives, who had feared his son following his footsteps, could think of nothing that pleased him more than his son helping people. And, from Bailey's messages, it sounded as if Kolyat had taken to the work.

The small apartment Kolyat lived in was different than Thane would have expected.

He'd expected less personality, more utility. Thane's life had been that way, driven and controlled by his job and his obligations. Kolyat's apartment reminded Thane of their old home, the one Irikah had decorated. It seemed their son had followed her in many ways.

And given his work with C-Sec, it seemed a mercy that Kolyat had gotten his mother's heart and courage.

Their messages back and forth had been brief; at least, Kolyat's had. Still, he'd responded. It was more than Thane had expected or deserved.

"It's not much," Kolyat said as he hung his coat on a hook by the door.

"It is very nice. Much more than I had at your age."

"Yeah? What did you have at my age?"

Thane turned away from his son, choosing to survey the room instead of looking at him while he answered. "By your age, I had a thriving career, but because of the compact, I could own nothing. I slept where ever I could when I needed sleep, but I never had a place of my own, not until your mother." Thane picked up a picture of Irikah, a strange thing for a drell apartment. "Why do you keep this?"

Kolyat took the picture from Thane's hands and set it back where it had been on the shelf. "I like to have it for when other people come by. It's hard to describe her, so I like having a picture to show."

He left unsaid that he didn't need a picture of Thane. He did not care to tell anyone about his father.

"So you have friends, then? I am glad. I have found that too much time in isolation wears upon a persons spirit. There are not many drell, but I've discovered that other races can still help ease loneliness."

Kolyat's finger rubbed over the top of the frame. "Yeah. I've got a few buddies in C-Sec; they like to come over for drinks after shifts. We watch vids sometimes."

Thane's gaze shifted toward the back of the apartment to spot the bottle of lotion on the shelf. Human lotion. Drell scales did not require moisturizing like that, meaning the lotion could only be for a human.

But applying lotion was not something humans did in friend's homes, and certainly not often enough to require a bottle of it unless said human spent a great deal of time with the drell, or during certain activities that had required such precautions between Thane and Shepard.

Kolyat seemed to catch his father's gaze because he stuttered before snatching the lotion off the shelf and shoving it into a drawer. "That's for Kaitlyn."

"Kaitlyn? A C-Sec friend?"

"No. She works at one of the restaurants. I met her when I had to help take her report after someone mugged her." Kolyat didn't meet Thane's gaze, his words hard and defensive.

At that, Thane noted another picture, on a higher shelf. A human girl, purple hair pulled back into a pony-tail, Kolyat's arm draped over her shoulders. "Kaitlyn?" Thane gestured at the picture.

Kolyat jerked his head in a single nod. "She said homes should have pictures of the people we care about, even if we can remember them perfectly."

"That is wise. She sounds lovely." Thane didn't ask to meet her, knew he didn't have the right to ask such a thing.

Kolyat shoved his hands into his pockets, his mannerisms and speech so unlike Thane's. It made Thane feel aged, like a relic of a forgotten age. "Maybe, if you come back, maybe the three of us could grab a bite to eat."

Thane tried not to let the shock show on his face. "Yes. I would like that."

"Will you be back?"

"I do not know. This mission, it draws near its end. We will be leaving soon, through the Omega 4 relay. I do not know what will happen."

Kolyat's lips pressed together. "No one has ever come back from the Omega 4 relay."

"Yes, but I am going with Commander Shepard. She has a habit of doing things no one else could."

"And she has a habit of getting her crew killed."

"Sacrifices must be made, sometimes. What we face, it is a danger to you, to everyone. If I end up a sacrifice to your safety, I will make that sacrifice with pride." Thane's omnitool received a message from Joker, letting him know the Normandy was ready to depart.

Always too soon.

Kolyat didn't ask, probably could tell from Thane's face that he had to leave. "Try to come back. I think you'd like to meet Kaitlyn. She reminds me of Mother."

Thane nodded. "I will do whatever I can to return. Take care of yourself and Kaitlyn."

When Thane reached the door, Kolyat's voice stopped him.

"Wait."

Thane paused at the door, then turned back when Kolyat didn't continue.

His son's eyes had locked on Irikah's photo. "Before you go, can I have a picture?"

"Of your mother? I'm afraid I don't-"

Kolyat shook his head. "Of you. Kaitlyn says homes need pictures of all the people we care about. Besides, she should know what you look like, especially if you don't make it back."

Thane placed his hands behind him to keep from reaching out, from crossing boundaries Kolyat may not be ready to cross. Instead, Thane nodded once. "Yes. I will have it sent to you before I leave the Citadel."  

# 

Thane did make it back, though he arrived alone.

He had hoped he would have Shepard by his side. How Kolyat would take the new relationship, he hadn't known, but she'd become too important for him to pretend she didn't exist, to hide her from his son.

However, her incarceration on Earth had made that impossible. He'd wanted to break her out. He'd had every intention to do so, but Shepard had too much honor. In the moments before they'd taken her away, she'd thrown her arms around him and kissed him, then whispered into his ear. ‘It's just the way it has to be. I don't regret any of it, and when I do get out of here, I'm coming back to you.’

He only hoped he'd still live when she made it back. Breathing had become more difficult, though he refused to tell Kolyat. They'd started to spend more time together, with Kolyat slowly introducing Thane to his life.

Kaitlyn had proven the biggest surprise. Human, as he'd known and expected. Drell females on the Citadel were rare, after all. Sweet, a hard worker, a girl who looked at Kolyat as if no one else in the world existed.

Kolyat and Thane sat in Kolyat's apartment after their dinner together, Kaitlyn having made an excuse for their privacy.

"She is lovely," Thane said. The clothing in the open closet, the personal items on the shelves. "She is living here?"

Kolyat took a drink of his beer. He had an ease Thane envied, a way of fitting in with others that Thane had never managed. "Yeah. A few weeks now. We spent so much time together, didn't seem any reason to pay for two apartments."

Practicality disguising sentimentality, and it thrilled Thane. "I like her. She is a good mate for you. Thank you for allowing me to meet her."

Kolyat rubbed his finger against the beer. "She pushed the issue. Said family was rare. She lost hers when slavers hit her colony, so when she found out I had a father I wasn't talking to, she made it clear I needed to make things right."

"I was the one who needed to make things right. I am only grateful you've given me a chance."

"And what about you? I might not have said anything, but I saw the looks between you and Shepard when you both stopped me."

Thane hesitated. "Ah. That. I had not been sure how or when to broach that subject."

"I'm not a kid anymore. I knew you'd move on."

Thane leaned forward, elbows setting on his knees. "It was not moving on as if I forgot your mother. She is with me, always. Shepard is not your mother."

Kolyat let out a soft laugh. "Oh, I know that. Though, I think maybe Mother was the only other person the Collectors would have run from. Maybe they aren't so different."

The conversation fell to silence for a short while, something that bothered neither men. Drell didn't mind silence, perhaps because of their memory. They needed to fill the present with less noise since they had so much of their past with them.

Finally, it was Kolyat who broke that silence. "Tell me about her."

Thane frowned as he considered what to say. So many knew so much of Shepard. They knew what happened with the Collectors, with her military career, with so many mission. None of those were the things he had fallen for, however.

Instead, Thane spoke softly. "Her nose bleeds when she sleeps."

Kolyat tilted his head. "Is that a strange human thing I don't know about?"

"No." Thane tried to explain it. "Aboard the Normandy, I needed the most arid quarters. It placed me in the Life Support room, and we placed a machine in there as well to remove all the humidity possible. Shepard slept in that room with me despite the fact it caused her nose bleeds. She would wake up, blood streaming down her face, but never complain. She said 'bleeding is a small price to pay for me to have you.'"

Kolyat's eyes gave little away as he stared back. "I hope you can have her back soon. You've lost one woman; I don't want you to lose another."

Thane sighed before he dropped his gaze.

He'd thought the same thing many times.

# 

The Earth desert made Thane think about Rakhana. Is this what the drell homeworld would have looked like had industrial overexpansion not destroyed it?

The tan sand stretched out, red and oranges bleeding into the browns.

"The sun is brighter than I thought it'd be." Kaitlyn had an arm through the crook of Kolyat's, a hat to shield her skin from damage. The months they'd spent together had Thane approving of the human girl more and more.

She was different than Shepard, different than many of the humans Thane had known. Quick to smile, she'd done more than Thane could ever do to draw Kolyat's anger away, to give him good things in his life. He smiled more, laughed more, looked forward to a future.

So when Thane wished to visit Earth, Kolyat and Kaitlyn had come as well. A family vacation, Kaitlyn had said.

"Did you ever think that Shepard might be looking at this same sun right at this very moment?" Kaitlyn twisted, flashing a smile at Thane.

She was sweet, romanticizing Thane and Shepard, never letting go of the belief that they would end up together, that love overcame anything.

Thane was more practical. The months had taken their toll and dizziness had started. The doctors told him it meant his lungs could not properly create the oxygen chains. His time grew shorter still, and he'd begun to lose hope Shepard would make it back before he went to the sea.

He never spoke of it to Kolyat, though he suspected his son knew. There was no reason to burden Kolyat or Kaitlyn with the inevitable. His body would fail him, sooner rather than later, and death would happen with him gasping and struggling for air. Nothing would change it, and he didn't care for Kolyat or worry.

He knew of Thane’s illness, of course. It would be unfair for Thane not at least to tell him. He simply didn't know how far it had progressed.

When Thane had difficult days, ones where the numbness in his fingers caused him to drop things, or when the dizziness had him unable to walk, he stayed in his apartment.

No one needed to see that, least of all his son. Kolyat had survived the death of his mother; he didn't need to watch his father deteriorate as well.

"I wish Shepard was here to see it with me. She used to tell me about lizards, small reptiles that live in the deserts of Earth. She threatened to purchase one to show me that we matched." Thane's lips tilted up as he considered that. He'd love nothing more than to have his Siha walk up, tiny lizard in hand, just so long as she was there, so long as he could see her, touch her. "Even though I can see her smile in perfect detail, I miss her."

Kolyat set a hand on his shoulder. "You will see her again, Father."

Thane reached up, his hand squeezing Kolyat's before the dizziness hit him.

It came in waves, some small, some large, and this one crashed over him. He wavered on his feet, frustrated by his infirmity. He'd trained his entire childhood to be perfect, to hone his body into a tool, and the fact it escaped his control shamed him.

He stumbled.

Kaitlyn and Kolyat spoke, but the words garbled. Everything went dark as he fell. 

# 

The hospital had beautiful views. A gilded cage is what Shepard would call it. Still, Kolyat's worry had gotten the best of Thane. He'd agreed to move into a hospital room, to submit himself to continual medical care. 

Kaitlyn sat across from Thane in the small room, a blanket in her lap that she knitted.

A strange hobby, one she'd said her grandmother had taught her. Thane had a collection of sweaters with uneven arms and mismatched socks given to him as gifts from her. He wore them dutifully when she came to visit, and she came often.

Kolyat worked many hours, though he stopped in every few days for a meal if nothing else. Kaitlyn worked fewer hours, so would keep Thane company no matter how often he'd said he didn't need it.

"When are you going to tell him?" Her gaze didn't lift from her work where the yarn moved over the knitting needles.

"What?"

"Don't act like I don't know what's going on. You and Kolyat might try to do this whole not talking thing, but I'm human. It means we trample right over any verbal do not cross signs. The last doctor, he gave you an estimate. It wasn't a good one I guess, so tell me, when are you going to tell Kolyat?"

Thane smiled at the steel on her voice. Perhaps not as unlike Shepard as he thought at times.

"He has given me three months."

"And that was a week ago. Why haven't you told Kolyat?"

"Because he can do nothing about it. Why would I burden him with that news?"

"Because he deserves to know."

Thane shook his head, his daughter-in-law tenacious but uninformed. "The more Kolyat has ever known about me, the more I have harmed him. You lack all the relevant-"

"Don't you dare speak to me like that. I know your past, Thane. Kolyat told me enough, and I researched the rest. I know you were an assassin, I know what you've done. He knows it, too, but you're the only one still holding onto it. What? You're hoping that you'll just die in your sleep one day and he won't notice? That he'll just move on?"

"He deserves more. He always has, and I have never been able to give the things to him."

"He still thinks you have years left. He's in denial because you lie to him about the truth."

"Why does it matter?"

She lifted the blanket from her lap to show it. Blues and greens covered the small piece, too small to be an adult's blanket-

Thane's eyes narrowed. Humans and drell could not reproduce. "What does this mean?"

"We've had the paperwork in to adopt a child, a drell child from a colony world with no family to take him. Kolyat believes there is plenty of time because he wants to focus on you, on getting you better."

"You two will have a child?"

"And if he knew how little time you had left, he'd rush the paperwork. I want you to meet your grandson before time runs out, Thane." She stretched her arm out to hand over the blanket.

Thane clutched it in his fingers as he imagined it. To hold a child again. Not his blood, not Kolyat's blood, but a grandchild just the same.

Thane nodded. "I will speak to him tonight."

Kaitlyn wiped a hand below her cheek but said nothing of the tears there. "Good. I've already planned dinner." 

# 

Thane laughed as Thomas crawled into his lap. _Thomas_. Perhaps not a fitting drell name, but the child had wanted a new name, a human one to match his new mother, and Kaitlyn had been only too happy to offer one.

He was only five but reminded Thane of Kolyat. Impulsive, inquisitive, too smart for his own good.

"Another story," the boy pleaded before shoving the datapad at Thane.

"I believe your mother said it was bedtime," Kolyat scolded.

Thomas pouted, cuddling back into the warmth of Thane's chest like any wily grandchild would.

And the joys of being a grandparent had Thane taking the datapad. "I believe just one more story would be acceptable. You come to visit so rarely." Thane had no problem playing the guilt card.

Kaitlyn's smirk said she knew the game Thane played, but she only chuckled and took a seat.

Thane lifted the datapad and began to read. The story was one of a princess locked in a tower. It made him think of Shepard, who did as she always did, taking the fight to the Reapers.

They had hit her planet, something he struggled to come to terms with. To think the planet he'd seen with Kolyat and Kaitlyn was burning saddened him. Still, ever the hero, she'd stepped up to drive the darkness back.

She'd come to visit him, as well. Their reunion had been brief, but she had met Kolyat and Kaitlyn and even Thomas. She had seen his family before she went to save everyone.

And knowing she was out there, knowing she stood against the reapers? Thane pulled Thomas tighter against him as he read, knowing she would win. Shepard would never let the galaxy fall. She’d hold it upon her shoulders if he had to.

"The hero then-" A coughing fit took over, Thane's vision blurring. He shuddered in breaths that didn't help as he choked despite his breathing.

"Grandfather?" Thomas caught the datapad before Thane could drop it.

"I’m all right." Thane attempted to continue the story, but more coughing broke out.

Kolyat came over and pulled the datapad from Thane's fingers, picking up where Thane had left off, where his voice had failed him.

Thane laid his head back on the chair, his grandson in his lap, his son's voice filling the room.

It was more than he ever deserved.  

# 

The end was not as Thane had expected. A hospital bed, yes. He'd long since given up hope for anything different.

What he had not expected was to be run through with a sword, or to have Shepard by his side when he went.

Still, he ended things in his own way. Not weakened when everyone had forgotten who he had been, but doing something important. He’d died protecting Shepard, protecting his son, his grandson, his family. He could think of no better ending.

She recited the prayer with Kolyat when Thane's voice failed him, when his lungs could not overcome the illness any longer.

The voice allowed him to relax, to let go. He'd held on so much longer than he'd expected for her. Somehow, it had felt wrong to go without a last goodbye, without a chance to see her once again.

Shepard took his hand in hers, lips pressing against his head in a gentle goodbye.

Kolyat set a hand on his other arm and squeezed. It said all the things Kolyat hadn't, the forgiveness Thane had never earned but always wanted. In the end, that matter the most to Thane. Not the good deeds, not the adventures, not any of it. The people who would remember him, the family he'd created, the family he'd gotten back. 

He thought of those he'd leave behind, thankful to have been able to leave the world a little brighter than he'd found it as sea took him. 

 


End file.
